"May I know something of this evening"s program?" I asked.
"Spoil the whole show?" Mr. Bundercombe objected earnestly. "Just play the part of a.s.sistant audience and stick this into your pocket, will you?"
He threw toward me a very small revolver that he had produced from a drawer.
"Only the last three chambers are loaded," he remarked. "You"ll have to click three times if you do use it. I don"t think you"ll need to, though.
Take a stall and watch the fun. I"ll tell you only this: You remember Bone Stanley, as he was called in those days--the man who was sent to prison for fifteen years for bank robbery and for shooting the manager? Down Hammersmith way it was. The fellow was an American."
"I remember it quite well," I a.s.sented. "He was tried for murder and convicted of manslaughter."
Mr. Bundercombe nodded.
"He was released this afternoon. He"ll be here in a few minutes."
"Here!" I exclaimed.
Mr. Bundercombe nodded but did not offer any further explanation. Coupled with a certain gravity of expression he had the appearance of a schoolboy for whom a feast was being set out. "Quite a pleasant little evening we are going to have!" he promised. "You wait!"
I frowned a little uneasily.
"You are quite sure you"re not letting me in for--"
Mr. Bundercombe plunged into the middle of my little protest.
"You"re all right, Paul!" he a.s.sured me. "Cullen"s in the house at the present moment and there are two other detectives with him. They are letting me run this thing simply because I know more about it than they do; and for certain reasons I"m not giving my whole hand away. Don"t you worry, Paul! You"ll be all right this time. Listen!"
We heard a very feeble ring at the bell. Mr. Bundercombe nodded.
"That"s Stanley," he whispered. "Sit down!"
A man was shown into the room a moment later. I leaned forward in my chair so as to see more distinctly the hero of one of the most famous cases that had ever been tried in a criminal court. Of his renowned good looks there was little left. He stood there, still tall, with high cheekbones, furtive eyes and long mouth. He wore good clothes, his linen was irreproachable, and he kept his gloves on. Nevertheless the stamp of the prison was upon him.
"Mr. Stanley?" Mr. Bundercombe said. "Good! I am glad you were prevailed upon to come."
"I am still wholly in the dark as to what this means!" the newcomer remarked.
"I"ll tell you in a very few sentences," Mr. Bundercombe promised. "Will you sit down?"
"I prefer to stand," Stanley replied, "until I know exactly in whose house I am and what your interest in me is."
"Very well!" Mr. Bundercombe agreed. "Here is my history: My name is Joseph H. Bundercombe. I am an American manufacturer. I have made a fortune in manufacturing Bundercombe"s Reaping Machines. You may call it a hobby, if you like, but I have always been interested in criminals and criminal methods--not the lowest type, but men who have pitted their brains against others and robbed them.
"As soon as I arrived in this country I found an interest in inquiring into the ident.i.ties of American criminals imprisoned over here, with a view to helping any deserving cases. Your name came before me. I studied your case. I became interested in it. I learned that your time was almost up. A chance inquiry revealed to me a state of things that I determined to bring before your knowledge."
"You sent me a telegram," Mr. Stanley interrupted, "as I was stepping on the steamer at Southampton. I have returned to London for your explanation."
"You will probably," Mr. Bundercombe remarked genially, "be thankful all your life that you did. Now listen!"
"Who is this person?" Mr. Stanley asked, indicating me. "He is my prospective son-in-law, Mr. Paul Walmsley," Mr. Bundercombe explained; "a member of Parliament. I have asked him to be present because I may need a little support, and also because it may help to convince you that I am in earnest.
"Twenty years ago, Mr. Stanley, you came to the conclusion that honest methods were of little use to any one seeking to make a large fortune. You joined with two other men, Richard Densmore and Philip Harding, in a series of semicriminal conspiracies.
"You pooled all your money--you had the most --and you determined that if you could not make a living honestly you would rob those with less brains than yourself. When half your capital was gone, this Hammersmith bank robbery was planned and took place. You were the only one caught and you held your tongue like a man; but, all the same, you were used as a cat"s- paw."
"In what way?" Stanley asked softly.
"You all three had revolvers; you all three arranged that they should be uncharged. Cartridges were put into yours without your knowledge. You held up your revolver and pressed the trigger, believing it to be empty. The others knew better. You shot the bank manager and in the stupefaction that followed you became an easy captive. The others escaped."
Stanley moved a little on his feet. His lips were slightly parted, his eyes fixed upon Mr. Bundercombe.
"What story is this you are telling me?" he muttered.
"A true one!" Mr. Bundercombe continued.
"Now listen! The total amount in possession of your two confederates when you went into prison was under a thousand pounds. You heard from them periodically as struggling paupers. Harding met you out of prison. He was almost in rags. They were at the end of their resources, he told you. He gave you a hundred pounds, to procure which, he a.s.sured you with tears in his eyes, they had almost beggared themselves. It was to enable you to leave the country and make a fresh start.
"You were even grateful. You shook him by the hand. You left him at the hotel at Southampton only an hour before you got my telegram."
"What of it?" Stanley asked.
"Nothing, except this," Mr. Bundercombe concluded: "Your two partners were so scared at the result of the Hammersmith affair and at your sentence that they turned over a new leaf. They went into business as outside stockbrokers--with your capital. The agreement as to a third profits was still in force. They had what I can describe only as the devil"s own luck.
I should say their total capital to-day is at least fifty thousand pounds.
"The time came for you to be released. They had no idea of parting with a third of their money and taking you into the business. All the time they had deceived you. They continued the deception. Harding met you as a poor man. But for me you would have been on your way to South Africa by this time, with a hundred pounds in your pocket."
"Is what you are telling me the truth?" Stanley demanded.
"Absolutely!" Mr. Bundercombe declared. "I stumbled across the truth in making inquiries concerning you and your probable future. I had meant, as a matter of fact, to put up a little money of my own to give you a fresh start. In the course of these inquiries I happened to run across a young woman who had been a typist in Harding"s office. It was from her I learned the truth. As he rose in the world Harding seems to have treated the girl badly. A little kindness and a little attention on my part, and I learned the truth. She placed me in possession of the whole story after we had lunched together to-day."
Stanley at last took the chair he had so long refused. He sat with his arms folded.
"And I kept my mouth closed!" he muttered. "It was their job. I would no more have pulled the trigger of my revolver than I would have shot myself --if I had known. It was they who put the cartridges there!"
He sat for a moment quite still. Mr. Bundercombe rang the bell.
"The gentlemen I am expecting," he said, "will be here in a moment. You can show them in directly they arrive."
The man bowed and withdrew. Mr. Bundercombe turned to his visitor.
"I have made the acquaintance," he continued, "of these two men, your late partners--sought them out and made it purposely. They are coming here to see me to-night. They fancy that it is just a friendly call. They know that I have money to invest. I have even made use of them, employed them to buy for me bonds of my own choosing. They think it is an affair of a little business chat, perhaps, and a restaurant supper. Pull yourself together, Stanley! Go into that corner, behind the curtain. Wait your time!"
Stanley rose slowly to his feet. His face was drawn as though with pain.
"It isn"t so much the money," he muttered, "only I thought--I fancied they would have been there to meet me, to shake me by the hand, to stay with me! And they wanted to push me off out of the country!"
He opened his lips a little wider and swore, softly but vindictively. Then the bell rang. Mr. Bundercombe hastened to push him out of sight. We heard the sound of strange voices in the hall. When the door was opened it was obvious that the whole house was lit up. From somewhere in the distance came the soft music of a piano.
Mr. Harding and Mr. Densmore were announced. I looked at them curiously.
They were both most correctly dressed in evening clothes. They both had somehow the hard expression of worldly men, tempered not altogether pleasantly by symptoms of good living. They greeted Mr. Bundercombe with bluff heartiness. He gave them each a hand.